Study guide

There's a place beyond language, beyond thought, beneath all our conditioning and training and psychological defenses, somewhere in the deep subconscious caverns of our souls, the domain of strong emotions and primal yearnings, where the brightest spark of our divinity dwells. It's this place that art can penetrate, deftly working through our cognitive armor and stir us to the core. No wonder art has served as a devotional aid for two millennia.

More

Where the Magi stood

Where the Magi stood, I stand before you today. When they came you were a baby in your mother's arms no longer — but a toddler on your mother's lap. You could sit up, you could stand up. You had begun to talk, to walk. The grownup man in me wants to guide you, teach you, shield you, take your hand.

The little boy deeper in wants to play with you, make faces to make you laugh. It's hard to think of you that way: 2 years old, with all that means. Maybe that's why they never picture you this way today. But someone carved you, sitting forth on Mary's knees, and I am grateful. For just as I see your image as it once was — when the wood was fresh and fragrant and the surface smooth and the paint intact — so I through that see you: The Word learning to speak, the Lord learning to walk. And every 2-year-old before and since, an image of the living God.